Oct

22

1939

Reflections on the 'Maginot Line'

The novelist George Beardmore was working for the BBC in the West End of London:

Hamley’s of Regent Street have their latest toy in the main window – ‘Build Your Own Maginot Line’. On show is a cross-section of the tiered dug-outs and little men in them doing a variety of duties, a blimp hung up from a lorry outside, and an advance patrol crawling through the heavily camouflaged country, meeting with heavy fire. All right, it’s only a toy, but a sudden realisation was brought home to me that, historically, purely defensive positions have never held out for long. Or hasn’t the French General Staff read Plutarch?”